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May 24, 2022 08:44 pm
Original Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/05/24/1941253/shards-of-the-planet-mercury-may-be-hiding-on-earth?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
Shards of the Planet Mercury May Be Hiding on Earth
New research explains how meteorites called aubrites may actually be shattered pieces of the planet closest to the sun from the early days of the solar system. From a report: Mercury does not make sense. It is a bizarre hunk of rock with a composition that is unlike its neighboring rocky planets. "It's way too dense," said David Rothery, a planetary scientist at the Open University in England. Most of the planet, the closest to the sun, is taken up by its core. It lacks a thick mantle like Earth has, and no one is quite sure why. One possibility is that the planet used to be much bigger -- perhaps twice its current bulk or more. Billions of years ago, this fledgling proto-Mercury, or super Mercury, could have been hit by a large object, stripping away its outer layers and leaving the remnant we see behind. While a nice idea, there has never been direct evidence for it. But some researchers think they have found something. In work presented [PDF] at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in March, Camille Cartier, a planetary scientist at the University of Lorraine in France, and colleagues said pieces of this proto-Mercury may be hiding in museums and other meteorite collections. Studying them could unlock the planet's mysteries. "We don't have any samples of Mercury" at the moment, said Dr. Cartier. Gaining such specimens "would be a small revolution" in understanding the natural history of the solar system's smallest planet. According to the Meteoritical Society, nearly 70,000 meteorites have been gathered around the world from places as remote as the Sahara and Antarctica, finding their way into museums and other collections. Most are from asteroids ejected from the belt between Mars and Jupiter, while more than 500 come from the moon. More than 300 are from Mars.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/05/24/1941253/shards-of-the-planet-mercury-may-be-hiding-on-earth?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
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